Why Does Every In-House Legal Team Need Matter Management Software in 2025?

A typical day for an in-house legal team was once all about handling piles of emails, but as matters continue to accumulate, so does their workload. Legal work in 2025 is more complex than ever. The team has to deal with more than just matters, documents, and compliance.

The team should be capable of handling external support, keeping costs in control, staying compliant with evolving rules and regulations, and, most importantly, incorporating emerging technology such as the use of AI and automation for routine tasks. Manual processing of these activities leads to inefficiency and loss of time, according to reports.  

 Now the question arises: how does an in-house legal department stay effective, compliant, and productive?

The solution is legal matter management software, a core platform with functionalities that can assist the in-house legal team in managing their day-to-day administrative tasks. With features like automated reminders, document management, communications co-counsel portal, and more, it makes the process smooth and efficient. 

Let’s explore more about why in-house teams need a matter management system and its key features further in the blog.

What is matter management software?  

If you are still wondering what matter management software is, let’s dive in and see. 

Matter management is a software that is designed to help in-house teams and corporate departments in managing all activities related to the process of matter management, litigation,  billing, and more.

In-house legal team software helps create matters and manage a repository for documents, matters, and tasks all in one place. The legal team can also attach events and tasks to the workflow. A legal matter management system handles other tasks as well, such as auto-reminders for deadlines or reports, so your team can concentrate on real legal work rather than administrative day-to-day work.

It also provides collaboration features for finance and external legal advisors to share information, documents, and assign tasks, eliminating the annoying email chain. Some legal matter management system provides audit trails to manage budgeting. 

It’s the legal matter management software, such as MatterSuite, that has legal teams running smoothly, in sync, and under control, without the frustration of having to deal with a dozen different systems. If your team is lagging, maybe it’s time to refresh. 

Why Legal In-House Teams Need Matter Management Software 

Legal in-house team needs a legal matter management software like MatterSuite more than ever before because legal work is becoming more complex with increasing workload, changing regulations. Matter management acts as a centralized platform where all your daily administrative works are organized in a single centralized platform.

To manage matters, it provides features to categorize them based on active or archived status. It has filters to describe details like client, practice area, and attorney responsible for it. The legal team can even attach workflow, calendar, and relevant documents, which helps you to collaborate with outside counsel, giving them limited access to the relevant matter. In short, matter management software keeps your legal team organized and focused on real legal work.

Now, what are its features that the in-house team can use to tackle the challenges it is facing in 2025?

A  matter management software today is not only becoming an option but an essential tool that the legal in-house team must have to tackle new challenges and use the technology to help them manage routine work. Some of the features of matter management software that can assist the in-house legal team include:

Centralized Matter Management

A matter management software helps legal teams in centralizing matters, leads, contacts, documents, calendar events, invoices, budget, legal billing & invoicing, and much more within one software. Create a customizable matter workflow and add events and tasks to it. Keep track of deadlines, monitor legal spend, and generate financial reports. 

Manage and Draft Documents 

A matter management solution will help you assist in handling and storing documents in the cloud, in a single place, so that your legal team can access them anywhere, at any time. 

The team can even draft a document with AI to prevent human errors. Send documents for e-signature through emails, collaborate on documents, maintain a detailed repository, view, edit, version control, or manage role-based access for sensitive documents. 

Task Management 

The matter management solution offers a feature to assign tasks, which can be grouped by staff or dates. The in-house team can also attach a task to the workflow. Use filters like matter type, task assigned, and task type, and set priority according to the need. 

Collaborate with Your Team and Partners

Real-time communications for securely connecting to your client and team with a matter management solution, which provides different portals like the client portal, staff portal, and co-counsel portal, which give role-based access to the relevant matter.

It helps the legal team to communicate in an organized way. No more messy emails or insecure file-sharing—just smooth, secure communication that keeps everyone on the same page

Reports and Analysis 

Reports in legal matter management software make your day-to-day work much simpler and smarter. It simplifies your routine work, like billing and budgeting, matter reports give for quick overview of key dates, progress, and spending, task reports help you track what’s done and what still needs attention, staff reports show your team’s workload.

Communication reports consolidate all the emails, calls, and messages into one place with a matter management solution, so nothing falls through the cracks. All of these reports together save you time, impress your clients, and keep you on top of your legal work.  

Automated Routine Workflows

With a legal matter management system, you can automate workflows, you can develop personal routines that can automatically execute routine tasks, and provide personal checklists for various matters.

Matter management software lets you define workflows based on practice area or specific matter, assign tasks, events on a workflow, and get reminders for he same.

Control Access 

With a matter management solution legal team can create permission groups, assign roles and rights to staff, it provide for version control for documents, ensuring controlled access over sensitive data.

Complaint and Security 

Matter management software like MatterSuite is designed with enterprise-grade security to protect all matter-related data without it being tampered with, and controlled access with single sign-on (SSO) with two-way authentication.

Provide encryption to protect data and stay assured of safety, quality, and efficiency with ISO certified infrastructure.

Integrate with other tools 

Seamlessly integrate your legal matter management system with widely used apps such as Google Suite, Google Calendar, OneDrive, Dropbox, and Microsoft Suite with legal matter management software to streamline your day-to-day work. 

Connecting to the Microsoft Suite allows you to work with Word, Excel, and Outlook without having to juggle between apps. All these connections enable you to stay organized, save time, and keep your workflow going smoothly.

The Bottom Line  

In 2025, legal in-house teams must have legal matter management software to stay on top of other competitors and use the centralized platform to keep all their work organized, collaborate with co-counsels, stay compliant, and have real-time data insights, which not only saves them time but also reduces errors. In short, it’s the smartest way to keep your legal team working faster, stay productive.